Pickles makes rare intervention in North Somerset housing requirement policy

Following a request from North Somerset Council and local Conservative members of parliament Liam Fox and John Penrose, Pickles wrote to the Council (1-page / 244 KB PDF) to say he was making the direction to ensure that the planning inspector had correctly applied national planning policy in making his recommendation.

Pickles made the intervention prior to the dissolution of parliament ahead of the UK general election.

Planning expert Iain Gilbey, of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com said that the timing of the intervention, before the general election, means Pickles is unlikely to have to make a decision on the policy himself.

"This is a very rare example of the communities secretary exercising his powers of intervention under section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004," said Gilbey. "The timing is interesting, in the run up to the general election, with every indication being that a decision will not be made until after the election on 7 May, and then by a different communities secretary. Until then the local authority is unable to progress its core strategy. The speed and nature of the response may then turn on our new communities secretary's desire to mix things up locally in North Somerset."

The Council adopted its local plan core strategy in April 2012, including a policy requiring the construction of nearly 14,000 new homes in North Somerset by 2026. However, the High Court subsequently found that the policy was unlawful because the planning inspector who examined the core strategy prior to its adoption had failed to justify his support for the Council's housing figures.

When the policy was referred back to the Planning Inspectorate for re-examination, planning inspector Roland Punshon recommended (24-page / 247 KB PDF) that it should be modified to increase the housing requirement to 20,985 homes and to include commitments that the Council would apply the policy in line with a forthcoming joint strategic policy and review it by the end of 2018.

The inspector had raised concerns that the proposed housing figures did not address the objectively assessed local housing need and that the Council's evidence base was not informed by the wider needs of the strategic housing market of which North Somerset was part. Whilst he saw some justification in the core strategy's approach of increasing local employment opportunities in order to address the problem of residents out-commuting to jobs in Bristol, Punshon warned that: "it would be imprudent to rely too heavily on uncertain and uncontrollable reductions in out-commuting as a determining factor in establishing a very low housing requirement".

The inspector had considered that a housing target of around 21,000 homes would provide sufficient housing to meet local needs without abandoning the 'employment-led' strategy and that an early review of the policy would allow the Council to reassess whether the suggested housing targets were sufficient.